How to Write Your Book This Year: A Simple 5-Step Plan
Most people don't fail at writing a book because they can't write. They fail because they don't have a complete plan to get from the beginning to the end, and without that plan, the manuscript stays stuck in "someday" mode indefinitely.
I work with thought leaders and busy professionals who have the ideas but need help getting them out of their heads and onto the page. This five-step plan is the one I use to walk my clients through taking a book from an idea to a date on the calendar.
Prefer to watch instead of read? Check out the full video below.
Step 1: Start With Purpose
Before you start writing, you need to answer one question: Why am I writing this book?
It sounds simple, but so many authors skip this step and go straight to asking things like, "Do I need an ISBN? How much should I spend on an editor? What kind of cover should I get?" The answers to all of those questions depend entirely on your purpose, and without that clarity, you end up wasting time, money, and energy in the wrong places.
I like to use this analogy: if someone asks, "Where should I stay in Miami?" the first thing you're going to ask is, "Why are you going to Miami?" A business trip, a family vacation, and a girls' trip all have completely different answers.
Publishing a book works the same way, but a lot of aspiring authors are following generic strategies that don’t apply to their goals and vision for their book.
Ask yourself two things:
What is publishing this book doing for me? Be honest. More leads for your business? A New York Times bestseller credit? Seeing your name in print? There's no wrong answer, but you need to know yours. When the writing gets hard, your why is what keeps you going.
What is this book doing for my reader? What do you want someone to walk away with once they've finished? What's the transformation, big or small, that you're giving them? If you can create a book that makes someone want to immediately call a friend and say, "You have to read this," you've done your job.
Writer's block is mostly a lack of clarity. Get clear on where you're going, and you'll be able to figure out how to get there.
Step 2: Know Your Audience
You have to know who you're speaking to before you can actually speak to them.
When I ask authors who their audience is, the most common first answer is "everybody." And I get it. You want your work to reach as many people as possible. But "everybody" isn't a reader, and trying to write for everyone is one of the fastest ways to connect with no one.
Think about it this way: a cookbook promising healthy 30-minute meals could technically be picked up by anyone. But who is most likely to buy it? Someone who's health-conscious and short on time, not the person storing sweaters in their oven, and not the person who loves spending three hours on a gourmet meal.
Who is your most likely reader? What are they struggling with right now? And what does your book give them that gets them from where they are to where they want to be?
One thing that helps is putting a specific person in place of your reader. Picture them sitting across from you. How would you talk to them about this topic in casual conversation? That shift from "writing a book" to "talking to one person" can help you hone your voice and break through the resistance that stops so many writers.
Step 3: Create Your Outline
Now that you have your purpose and your audience, it's time to build the structure of your book. Start by brainstorming.
Think about the question your audience asks you most. If you were leading a workshop for this exact group of people, what topics would you cover? What are the main struggles they come to you with? Just start getting it all out, from broad ideas to specific ones.
Also, think about the content you've already created. If you're an expert or thought leader, this probably isn't the first time you've spoken about this. Social media posts, videos, podcast episodes, presentations, and emails all provide you with material to pull from. Don't start from scratch unnecessarily.
Once you have all of this information out, patterns will naturally emerge. You'll start to see groupings that can become your chapters. This is also a great place to use an AI tool to help you organize your thinking. Tools like Claude or ChatGPT are genuinely useful for taking a brain dump of ideas and helping you find structure in them.
From there, here's a simple outline framework:
For each chapter, write one sentence that captures the main takeaway. If you can't summarize it in one sentence, it's not clear enough yet. Then come up with two to three examples or pieces of supporting information for each chapter. Finally, check that every example supports the chapter's point and that every chapter supports the overall purpose of the book.
The goal is to make sure nothing in your book is just filler. Everything should be driving toward the point you're making.
Step 4: Do the Math
This is the step where a lot of people conk out. The brainstorming feels exciting. The actual is where it gets harder.
Start by setting a deadline tied to something meaningful. If your book is about women's empowerment, for example, you might target Women's History Month in March. If it's about entrepreneurship, maybe it's published in time for a major conference in your industry. Aim for roughly a year out, which is close enough to feel urgent, while being far enough out to be realistic.
Then work backwards:
Give yourself six months from finished draft to published book. That's for editing, beta readers, cover design, formatting, and marketing. Writing is far from the end point.
That means you have about four months to write your first draft. For a self-help or thought leadership book, you're typically looking at around 60,000 words. (Memoir and fiction tend to run longer, so adjust accordingly.)
60,000 words over four months breaks down like this:
15,000 words per month
3,750 words per week
~535 words per day
That's roughly two pages a day. Two Microsoft Word pages. Which is a lot more manageable than "I need to write a book"?
If you don’t have the same amount of time each day, think in weekly terms. 14 pages a week= Three focused days where you sit down and write four or five pages.
Note: don't edit yourself while writing. Just get it down. If you can't sit down to write, open your voice memos app and talk it out. You'll at least have the raw material to work with later.
Step 5: Commit Out Loud
You've set your deadline. Now tell someone else.
If you're ready to be bold about it, post it publicly. Tell your email list. Put it out there. If you're not quite there yet, tell a trusted friend, your business coach, your therapist, your partner, or someone who will hold you to it.
An idea stays an idea until you say it out loud. Once it leaves your mouth and goes into the world, it becomes a commitment.
You don't need more time. You need a realistic plan.
If you're serious about getting your book done this year, download the Book Completion Plan to map out your personal writing schedule and commit to the process.
And drop your deadline in the comments. I want to know you're making this real.